Aotearoa New Zealand history with Dr Vincent O'Malley and occasional guest contributors

Sunday, 26 April 2015

Remembering the New Zealand Wars

Over the past week or so I have appeared in print and on TV to argue the case for greater recognition of the New Zealand Wars. Last Sunday I did a live interview on the Q+A programme. Here is the link to the full interview. Here is the story that ran on the TVNZ website ('Let's Not Be Selective About the History We Remember'). And here is the online version of the opinion piece ('Historical Amnesia over New Zealand's Own Wars') that was published in the Dominion Post and the Press a few days later. Bryce Edwards also referred to these in his Political Roundup for the New Zealand Herald ('Anzac Fatigue and Dissent').

My comments generated quite a bit of debate and discussion. It is great to see a conversation happening about these issues. One point I wanted to pick up on was the suggestion that I should have raised these concerns earlier. In fact, I did so, expressing reservations about the impending Waikato War sesquicentennary nearly two years ago. See 'Waikato - The Forgotten War Anniversary'.

Meanwhile, iwi have been raising the same issues for years. See, for example, Tom Roa's comments here.

In summary, the need to give greater recognition to the New Zealand Wars is a matter that has been raised many times, by many different people, and over many years (much earlier Māori concerns on how the Waikato War was remembered is the focus of a forthcoming article of mine). And it seems to me a no-brainer that we should protect and promote sites of major historical significance scattered across our land. As I noted in my Q+A interview some of these are not even sign-posted. We can and should do better than that as a nation.